U.S. Blogger Breaches Canadian Publication Ban

nnet writes "The Toronto Sun is reporting that a U.S. blogger has been breaching a Canadian publication ban on AdScam. While The Sun hasn't given the URL for the blog itself, in fear of a contempt of court charge, this isn't the first time an American has breached a Canadian publication ban according to the article." The Sun story, though, does give a nice title for which to search, and this quickly yields the story in question.

Comments

Re:Stupid security model

[starfishsystems]

It sounds like they don't have a problem with the entire population of Canada being present (barring physical restrictions) but for some reason replicating the information later is bad.

Correct.

If you are physically present at the inquiry, there is no question that you are getting a 100% accurate experience of being present at the inquiry.

If, however, you rely on reports of what took place at the inquiry, those reports are 0% guaranteed to be representative of what actually took place.

At points between this inquiry and subsequent judicial proceedings, the above difference can create a risk of bias, and thus be harmful to justice. That's an important consideration, though in Canada at least it tends to be weighed against other considerations as well.

As you suggest, some countries might solve the problem quite simply by holding a secret inquiry, making it illegal for anyone to say anything about it to anyone outside the courtroom. In Canada we tend not to take quite such a fundamentalist position as that. This isn't a police state. I think it would be correct to say that we expect our citizens to be able to handle the gray areas as well as the black and white ones. Our laws are written accordingly, and what may be most interesting of all, they are enforced accordingly.

Let me get this straight: If I attend the proceedings, I'm not allowed to tell anybody? Even a spouse? Or am I only allowed to tell people I meet in person?

I have not attended this inquiry, so I don't have firsthand knowledge of the instructions regarding publication, which would probably clear up most of your questions. But clearly they refer to publication, and clearly their purpose is to reduce the risk of bias which publication might be expected to induce. We know that ordinary conversation between individuals is not publication, and we can see that the risk is low. Flying a banner behind an aircraft all day over Toronto which reads "CHUCK GUITÉ FUNNELLED $20M TO CHRÉTIEN" would probably be considered publication, not to mention being in bad taste.

The whole thing seems to be based on the distinction between members of the press and non-publicators. This distinction is arbitrary and archaic.

Perhaps, though that conclusion doesn't follow from the commentary you've offered. More likely the situation is related to the exercise of common sense. I believe the test in law is that of a "person, acting reasonably".